Improve Circulation of Warm Air from Heating System

Learn how to improve circulation of heated air from your heating system. Get rid of cold spots in a home by reversing a ceiling fan.

LESLIE: Taking a call from Illinois with Ed who’s got a heating question. What’s going on? Tell us about it.

ED: Yeah, I just basically remodeled my house…

TOM: OK.

ED: … and I put all brand new insulation. I mean every square inch I could find to insulate. And the lower four feet of my downstairs, at times, gets actually cold. You can stand up and it’s 70 degrees, where I set the thermostat.

TOM: Mm-hmm.

ED: But down below, I set the thermometer down there.

TOM: So what’s happening here is when you sit down you’re chilly. When you stand up it’s warm. So you’re not getting good circulation of the warm air. And it sounds like you have ducts that are supplying it in the floor but what you probably are not – don’t have enough of, or perhaps it’s not designed correctly, are return ducts. Because just because you’re supplying the warm air at the floor level doesn’t mean it’s circulating correctly and I suspect that there’s some defect here in the return duct that you’re not taking the heat back through the ducts and then reheating it. So I would have a heating contractor come out and take a look at the return duct situation and make sure we’re getting a good mix of hot and cold air. It’s normal for it to be warmer towards the ceiling, but if you’re not getting a good return then you’re always going to have those imperfections in the balance; an imbalance in the hot and the cold even over a couple of feet like that.

LESLIE: You know, Ed, another option might be a ceiling fan. If you’ve got a traditional ceiling fan in the room you can go ahead and flip that switch that’s on the motor itself and that’s going to reverse the way that the blades are rotating and that’s going to help push that warm air that’s rising down, which’ll help give you a little bit more heat in that space. Or you can think about installing something called a Reiker Room Conditioner which is a ceiling fan that heats and cools. It’s got a heating element built up into the motor unit itself. So you turn it on, it’s got a thermostat by remote and you can control any sort of heat that you want for the space, plus it keeps the cords of the floor; it’s safe for kids and pets. It might just help you sort of balance out that temperature in the room; especially on those damp days.

TOM: Ed, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.